Welcome to this guided meditation,
Exploring the stillness in the pauses.
So begin by finding a comfortable position for your body.
Check that your legs feel perfect,
Otherwise wriggle around a little bit,
Roll through your shoulders,
Let your head loosen off,
Let your eyes close,
And then let your movements and adjustments be very small and very slow,
Straightening through your spine,
Softening through your face,
Softening through your belly,
Softening your neck and throat and arms.
Let your awareness arrive inward and downward.
So you're scanning your body and just seeing how you feel right now.
You don't need to figure anything out or solve or fix anything at all,
Just feeling your body from the inside.
Sometimes it's nice to place a palm on the front of the body somewhere,
Allow yourself to connect,
Soothe and listen to how you feel today.
Whatever is bubbling up under the surface for you,
See if you can acknowledge it,
Allow it to be here,
Accept what is.
Let it chill down,
Let it dissolve down.
Taking slow full breaths through the heart space,
Sensing what's under the surface and offering it loving breath.
Another wave of relaxation through every tissue.
And when you're ready,
Come back to awareness of your breath.
100% present to the next two rounds,
All the way in and all the way out.
The air comes in,
The belly expands.
Maybe the exhales leave from your mouth.
Maybe there's a sigh or a sound just letting it all go.
The breath can be very quiet,
But also complete to the very top and complete to the bottom.
Become aware of the end points of your breath.
So at the top,
Let there be a small pause,
Noticing the space of completion.
Small pause at the bottom.
You can cut away your thoughts for the next few minutes only and follow your breath.
Creating a little gap between inhale and exhale,
Noticing there's a gap between thoughts.
A kind of surrender,
An emptiness between inhale and exhale.
The pauses between the thoughts,
The pause between the breaths are a mystery.
A stillness.
Your job is not to figure out the pauses or the breath,
But just to marinate in the background of stillness.
Keep loving your body,
Moving or stretching at any time if you need.
No resistance to thoughts.
No resistance to thoughts.
Keep your brain soft.
The breath full and the heart open.
And then,
The stillness that's here.
No response to thoughts.
And finally,
Bring your breath right into the center of the heart space.
Notice there's a stillness here as well.
The beauty of your essential being.
One more minute.
Holding a loving space for yourself and anything else that needs to be accepted.
Of course,
You can stay here for as long as you like.
Or you could conclude now,
Maybe bringing the palms into prayer.
Stretching out the body or anything else that feels meaningful for you before moving into the rest of your day.
You can stay here for as long as you like.
